By Carolyn Jones
The San Francisco Chronicle (California)
Copyright 2006 San Francisco Chronicle
All Rights Reserved
Fourteen years after voters funded the project, Berkeley opened a new firehouse this week that will serve the hills and portions of Tilden Park and Strawberry Canyon.
Firehouse No. 7, at 3000 Shasta Road, replaces the old hills firehouse three blocks away, which was seismically unsafe and configured so fire trucks had to do a two-point turn to get out, adding about a minute to response times.
The new firehouse can accommodate fire trucks and staff from the Berkeley and East Bay Regional Park District fire departments. On hot, dry days, the station will be staffed by both departments.
The firehouse was funded with $5 million from Measure G, which voters approved in 1992 in the aftermath of the Oakland-Berkeley hills fire. Initially the money was going to be spent on a joint station with Oakland, but Oakland decided to put a station elsewhere in the hills.